HALF OF A YELLOW SUN NETS N280 MILLION WORLDWIDE

The worldwide release of Half of a Yellow Sun has generated Two Hundred and Eighty Million Naira (N280,000,000) from cinema release, TV sales rights, online viewing and in-flight viewing. The movie which generated a lot of public debate after it was suspended by NFVCB in April will be released across 17 Nigerian cinemas on Friday, August 1. The journey of Half of a yellow Sun to cinema has not been all rosy, as the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) refused to classify it, in a move that some people felt was political. While NFVCB insisted that some aspects of the movie could incite religious unrest, after a lot of meetings, intrigues and public outcry, which attracted international attention, the Censors Board eventually classified the movie and gave the go ahead for a cinema release. The movie which had been released in the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand has so far allegedly generated over #280,000,000 and this is according to a source close to the producer. “Half of a Yellow Sun made the amount from cinema release, sales from in-flight rights, sales from television rights and online viewing. The total figure came to about One Million Pounds”. The movie which will be released on August 1 across Nigeria is expected to set a new box office record since the producer, author, and director are all from Nigeria. Keen watchers are interested to see if HOAYS will beat the Box Office record of over N100 million set by Avengers. When contacted, an officer of Bigsam Media said the whole team has high expectations for the movie. “We won’t like to get into calling figures, but the whole team working on HOAYS has high expectations for the movie as it is set for the August 1 release. This is unarguably the biggest movie in terms of investment produced from Nigeria. The expectations will be naturally high. We hope for the best and believe this should open the industry up for more investments and opportunities”. Half of a Yellow Sun is set in the time of the Biafra war and is a story of love, hate, lust, greed, jealousy and forgiveness. The movie features British-Nigerian BAFTA award winner and Oscar nominee, Chiwetel Ejiofor, BAFTA award winner, Thandie Newton and other A-list actors like Genevieve Nnaji and Onyeka Onwenu. It will be distributed in Nigeria by FilmOne Distribution.